Richard Alston's genius commentary about Malcolm Turnbull
What a great photo - Turnbull at the Press Club!
Watching the second episode of the ABC docuseries Nemesis, this one on Malcolm Turnbull, the striking impression is the subject’s solipsistic self-absorption.
There is no doubt Turnbull is capable of instant eloquence, but this should not be mistaken for intelligence, for which he is often credited.
What matters is not the natural inheritance of an ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills but, much more importantly, the judgment to make considered decisions and come to sensible conclusions.
As Liberal Party federal president at the time of his accession to the prime ministership and beyond, I had a ringside seat. Turnbull’s problem was that he didn’t trust anyone, presumably because he thought they were his intellectual inferiors.
The successful politician listens to those who can add value. I remember asking him why there had been a long delay in prosecuting an issue. He explained that although he had read all the departmental submissions and spoken to a number of experts, he hadn’t had time to do his own research.Politics is often defined as the art of compromise, but to Turnbull this was anathema – it was his way or the highway. This was because he regarded opposing arguments as inherently wrong; he saw his task as being to impose his vision on the unwashed. Convinced of the moral rectitude of his progressive instincts, he treated dissenters with disdain.
He had no conception that the political world is roughly divided into liberals and conservatives, and each needs to negotiate with the other, or at least treat them with respect. There is no evidence of him having any understanding of, or interest in, political history, international statesmanship or empathy with ordinary Australians.
Instead he was entirely comfortable as a classic member of the elites, a Sydney urbanist with very progressive instincts, freighted with adamantine ambition and self-belief.
He had no regard for party politics, which he saw as an impediment to good policy. He was a LINO, a Liberal in name only. In the lead-up to the 2016 election he seriously contemplated bypassing the Liberal Party federal secretariat and running the campaign from his office, which had very few political operatives.
Against all advice and political history, he insisted on an eight-week campaign.
Despite the fact he had very little to sell, his chosen slogans, such as “jobs and growth”, were totally unpersuasive but, when they went nowhere, he doubled down with the further inanity, “stick to the plan”, which he had never properly explained to anyone, let alone the voters.
As a result of running a campaign of the most appalling ineptitude Turnbull lost 14 seats and was extremely fortunate to survive with a majority of one – a singularly unstable situation that he later acknowledged but which led to no change of direction or improvement in people handling.
On the night of the election he stayed bunkered up in his Point Piper mansion for hours, despite several phone calls from me saying key donors were very unhappy with his non-appearance.
When he finally put in a late-night showing he refused to apologise for his campaign or to express sorrow for all those colleagues who had lost their seats. Instead he chose to deliver a rant about the iniquities of his opponents, especially about their dishonest “Mediscare” campaign, despite his not laying a glove on them when it counted.
When I tackled him about whether he could have done things better during the campaign, his response was typical: “I was up at 30,000 feet during the campaign so don’t blame me, blame those on the ground.”
He instinctively wanted to take the politics out of politics. Despite me advising him of much party membership dissatisfaction, he refused to use the Liberal logo, insisting his personal brand was a more powerful magnet.
Instead the punters were asked to vote for the Turnbull Coalition team. This was entirely consistent with his hubris in having placards around his electorate for years proclaiming “Turnbull for Wentworth” – no mention of Liberal.
He famously announced that he wanted a public debate about tax reform and told me he wasn’t going to fall for the old trick and rule anything in or out. Inevitably, this started the hares running in all directions, he lost control of the project and eventually ruled everything out.
I was in Parliament House when he rolled Tony Abbott. What struck me in the frantic number-crunching was that Turnbull had very few heavyweight supporters. The ones who escorted him down the corridors of powers were mostly inexperienced wannabes, lusting for promotion.
One of the notable moments in the ABC program was when Warren Entsch finally signed up to be the 43rd, and crucial, signatory to a petition of no confidence, effectively saying “this one’s for Brendan Nelson”, who had been defenestrated by Turnbull in the most vicious political act of treason that I have ever encountered, but which the program left untouched.
Another poignant moment was when he said he had refused to put Abbott into cabinet because he couldn’t be trusted, blithely ignoring the fact that Abbott had had no hesitation in “keeping his enemy closer”, when he made Turnbull his minister for communications.
Turnbull was clearly skewered on his own petard when he reached 38 losing Newspolls, having cited Abbott’s loss of a mere 30 as totally unacceptable.
He was never backwards in throwing around gratuitous insults: Abbott was “unspeakable”; Dutton was a “thug”; Morrison “said so many things that were obviously untrue”. Asked for one word about Morrison, he said: “duplicitous.”
The irony of it all is that he demanded total loyalty from others, when he had spent almost his entire parliamentary career undermining anyone he perceived as a threat. When it was apparent he had lost majority support he showed no insights into his predicament, simply musing that he wondered if his opponents knew what they were doing.
As the good Liberal he clearly wasn’t, he couldn’t go quietly into the night and instead declared war on his former colleagues, spending every waking moment for the next few years doing his best to ensure the Liberals didn’t win the next election.
Unfortunately for him the public basically ignored his troublemaking antics and the Morrison “miracle” prevailed.
It remains an extraordinary fact that despite having nothing in common with Liberal brand he refuses to hand in his ticket.
While he would like to pretend that he is high principled, his performance on the Indigenous voice to parliament amply demonstrated his political fluidity. At the outset he fulminated against the idea, describing it as a “third chamber” but as the debate entered real time expediency took over and he suddenly supported the Yes case.
The ultimate takeaway from the ABC program was that while others made many mistakes, with Turnbull it was always someone else’s fault. Humility is one Christian virtue he never understood, unlike John Howard who did, and history will judge them accordingly.
Richard Alston served as Liberal Party president from 2014 to 2017. As a Victorian senator, he held several ministerial portfolios in the Howard government, including minister for arts and communications.
